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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5887049" data-attributes="member: 42582">What is the basis for this statement? Fly at will is, I think, obviously too powerful for a 1st level PC. It will break any typical 1st level game. (Look at how the flight of pixie PCs in 4e is circumscribed to work around this.)But flight for 1 HD stirges, or bats, or birds does not break the game.The balance constraints on PCs and NPCs are wildly different. And almost self-evidently so, it seems to me.No one is denying that PCs can learn what NPCs can do. 4e has a whole mechanical subsystem (the monster knowledge check) devoted to this. (Maybe 3.5 has it as well - I don't think it is in the original core 3E books, though.)But monster level/HD is not part of this. It is no part of the PCs learning about an orc's ability to whirlwind attack that they learn that s/he is a 3HD or 4HD monster - because levels and hit dice are not part of the fiction. They're just a mechanical device.</blockquote>